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Alia hadn’t thought that she’d live to see the day when the Commons were empty, and yet here she was.
The lake, normally rippling with the footsteps of numerous prospective fishers, was mirror-like, reflecting the blue sheen of the sky, punctuated only by brief droplets from the fountain. The normally bustling paths were vacant. Off in the distance she could see the wisps of the fairground spiraling high into the sky before falling back to earth and to an empty field. Even Zeke and Eloise Merryweather were gone, leaving only an empty cart of wares.
More oppressive than anything, though, was the silence. The mindless chatter that normally bothered Alia, prompting her to move on as quickly as possible, now made the Commons seem eerie and uninviting in its absence. Alia stifled a shudder and parked her broom before heading up the path to the headmaster’s office, sandaled feet padding on the worn cobblestones. The circular window set in the doorway was dark. Even as Alia reached up to knock she wondered if she would have any sort of reply; however, at the slightest tap, it swung slightly ajar.
She took a final glance back at the empty Commons, noting that a storm cloud seemed to be rolling in. Wasn’t there a charm in place to prevent bad weather? She shook her head, turned back to the door, and hesitantly prodded it open.
The room beyond was dim, dimmer than she remembered; then again, it had been a while. There was a roaring fire in a grate behind the desk- had that always been there?- and in front of that was the Headmaster himself, doing. . . paperwork? Normally he was standing by his stacks of books, cheerily answering any questions for any new students. Though the Commons were deserted, Alia reminded herself. Perhaps he just had nothing to do.
"You wanted to see me, headmaster?"
Headmaster Ambrose glanced up from his paperwork and, seeing a familiar student, smiled warmly. "Yes, yes I do. Please, take a seat."
Alia carefully maneuvered herself into the huge violet chair, her fingertips grazing the raised chintz patterns. Despite the warm glint- no, twinkle- in the headmaster’s vibrant eye, she still couldn’t help but feel a sudden apprehension, nerves tugged taunt like an over-tuned guitar string. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something; she glanced around the room instead. She had only been in here a few times before, mainly before she had ventured off-world. It looked mostly the same since that year or so before, with the haphazard stacks of books and strewn papers. She wondered why there wasn’t more natural light, or wall sconces, or something. Probably how he lost vision in one of his eyes, she sagely noted to herself. Lack of good lighting.
“As you may or may not know,” Ambrose began, drawing Alia’s attention once more. “The staff here at Ravenwood Academy take special care that students, whilst away from home, remain on good terms with relatives and loved ones. Though you are obviously. . .” he trailed off a bit, lingering on the silence. “. . . A special case, so to say, I could not help but notice that you haven’t communicated with your family in quite some time.”
“To be quite honest, I can’t see how that’s any of your business. How would you even be aware of that?” She met Ambrose’s warm stare, unwavering in her coolness.
Unsurprisingly, the ancient wizard didn’t even flinch. “For as long as you remain my student it is my business,” he said, attempting severity but failing abysmally. “We keep in touch with the family ourselves, of course. We are alerted if there are any gaps in communication. With one as trouble-prone as yourself, it is very important to your family that you remain in touch, especially in light of that sticky situation from your childhood that I recently became aware of.”
Alia narrowed her eyes. “Situation? What-“
“Don’t you remember, Alia?” The flame in the fireplace flared up suddenly, grotesque and twisting, making the long shadows in the room jump out in sharp relief and dance around the stacks of books. Alia found herself unable to move. “Remember. You can do it. I believe in you, after all.” What might have once been a grandfatherly statement of encouragement seemed slightly less so from a figure with deep-set eyes, greasy hair, a goatee so stereotypically villainous that it was almost funny. Almost.
The room melted away in long wax-like drips, she was stuck to the chintz chair, its vines were twining around her legs and arms and neck-
“So, I found this waterfall. . .”
The suns beat down overhead, bright and hot, from the cloudless sky. Alia struggled to prop herself up on her elbows while simultaneously shielding her eyes, trying to peer out into the brightness beyond the shade of her favorite palm tree.
“You absolute nincompoop, we live in a desert,” she said crossly, blinking away the already-vague remains of an unwanted dream. “And I was sleeping. Did you really have to go and wake me up like that?”
“Yes,” the shadow said cheerfully, falling onto the sun-dried clay besides her. “Because I really did! It’s a legit waterfall and I have no clue how it got there but I found it when I was travelling to the Oasis this morning.”
Slightly more awake, Alia sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, glancing suspiciously at her friend. “Are you sure?”
“As sure as anything!” Kestrel looked completely earnest, if nothing else. “C’mon, it’ll be fun. Adventure! Exploring! Woo!”
“Fine,” Alia sighed. She stood, brushing the sand off her tunic. “Does mother know you’re back yet?”
“No, not yet.”
Alia grinned. “Excellent. We have some time to sneak off, then.”
Their bare feet padded silently on the worn-smooth wooden deck of the skyskipper. Carefully, Kestrel untied the line and pushed off from the dock. The sails caught wind almost immediately and the boat rocked and jumped, jostling Alia for a few brief moments before Kestrel got ahold of the rudder and steadied the ship. A few moments more, and the two relaxed a bit; the villa was receding quickly off into the distance. There was no way that they could be caught now.
“So,” Kestrel began, nudging the rudder and redirecting the skipper onto a slightly different path. “If you could go to Ravenwood, what school would you choose?”
Alia sighed, leaning her back against the side of the ship as she slid down to sit. “C’mon, Kes. We’ve had this conversation millions of times, and we both know that it’s never going to happen. Magic doesn’t run in my family, let alone yours; besides, you don’t choose your school, from what I’ve heard. It’s just what you have a natural . . . affinity with, I guess.” Alia ignored the pang of. . . emptiness? Sadness? Regret? She was never sure what it was, exactly, but it always came up when discussions about Ravenwood surfaced.
Kestrel pouted slightly, brushing the long curls of her hair out of her eyes. “Ye-es, but if you hypothetically could choose, and you could hypothetically actually attend, which school?”
Alia sighed again, relinquishing herself to the oft-discussed topic. “I dunno. Each school seems really neat, and they all have different strengths and weaknesses. They’re all appealing in their own way.”
Kestrel took a stance and placed a hand on her hip, staring off into the blue abyss of sky. “I would be a diviner,” she proclaimed. “Or a necromancer. Something really really cool.”
“If you want really cool you should go for thaumaturgy,” Alia teased lightly. “Maybe you should apply.”
“You know I wouldn’t apply unless you did,” Kestrel admonished. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about that?”
Alia shook her head, pigtails bobbing around her ears. “Like I said, there’s zero magical talent in my family. If I had any disposition towards magic it probably would have shown by now. Besides, I’m too old. So no, no I won’t apply just to face disappointment.”
Alia glanced over the edge of the ship to avoid Kestrel’s expression. The blue sky extended around them seemingly forever, though Alia knew that eventually it bled into the starry blackness of space. From here, home was only a speck in the distance, and she could see the vast pyramids of the Oasis beginning to loom up ahead.
That, however, was not where the duo were headed. Under Kestrel’s guiding hand, the ship took a gradual right, sloping gently off towards a small island in the distance that Alia had never noticed before. She rarely left home as it was; Kestrel ran most of the errands and chores, and so had full access to the skyskipper and funds of the Dunedust home. Her parents were often off on some sort of diplomatic mission or other, and so Alia was often left alone. This was fine with her; it left her plenty of time to peruse the family library and wade in the small pool behind the villa.
As the skyskipper neared the island, Alia realized that it was much larger than it had seemed from a distance. At the very edge were sloping dunes, dotted with a few dying trees. Over the crest of the dunes was mystery.
“And here we are! There’s no pier, so I’ll have to jump over, hang on.” Alia squeezed her eyes tightly shut, not wanting to watch as Kestrel did another stupid and reckless thing, like she always did. Kestrel, meanwhile, grabbed the end of the line and, in one fluid motion, stepped up onto the edge of the boat and leapt into empty space. Imperceptibly, she seemed to hang there for a moment, weightless, flying, before she began to fall.
She landed with a thump on the sand, feet solidly planted before whirling around, extending straight up with her arms in the air. “Tah-dah!”
“Kestrel please don’t do that,” Alia said in one exhaled breath.
Kestrel rolled her eyes and tied the line to the desiccated husk of what was once a tree. “Whatever.”
Alia clambered onto the island with far less grace, slipping on the edge and sending sand careening into the abyss.
“Right!” Kestrel clapped her hands together. “Let’s go!”
The two began the long trudge up the dune, kicking little clouds of sand behind them in plumes. At the crest, Kestrel shielded her eyes with her hand and peered off into the dunes. “There,” she said suddenly, pointing off at what seemed to Alia to simply be a normal pile of rocks indistinguishable from the other boulders dotting the landscape.
The two shuffled through the sand and rocks and dust for what felt like far too long. The heat of the two suns bathed Alia’s shoulders, at first comfortable but later scorching. Finally, the stones that Kestrel had pointed out loomed before them.
From a distance they’d seemed as small as pebbles; up this close, though, the sandstone stripes extended into the sky, creating vast shadows on the sand-baked clay. The two girls rested here for a moment before Kestrel beckoned Alia into the gap between the rocks. Alia glanced around, impressed at the sheer scale of the boulders arching above their heads, before following Kestrel down the flight of carved sandstone stairs. They were obviously man-made, she noted; each step was of uniform height, cut into the rock face with clear care. The passage descended into the depths of the island, and as the two continued downwards the entrance became nothing but a speck of light. It was dark, and cool, but Alia’s eyes adjusted quickly with the gradually dimming corridor.
Alia stumbled as her foot reached for another step but found level ground. She found her footing and glanced up at Kestral. They were in another chamber, now; there were strange hieroglyphics carved into the layered stone. She could feel a sort of hum, a roar, a vague vibration through the soles of her bare feet on the coarse sandstone.
“C’mon,” Kestrel said, slightly out of breath. “It’s just ahead.”
At the end of the room was another corridor that went only a few feet before taking a sharp right, and after that-
Alia made a little stifled undignified gasping noise that sounded slightly like a dying mouse. The chamber beyond was huge- the whole villa could fit here, she thought. Sunlight streamed in from gaps in the ceiling in broad beams, swirling around dancing dust motes and lighting up a roaring waterfall. It fell from far above, too far to even see, and crashed into a cloud of steam before calming into a wide pool. And the greenery! Alia was unsure that she’d ever seen so much water and plants in her entire life.
She turned to look at Kestrel, who glanced back with a smug little look on her face. “What did I tell you?”
“Okay, this is really cool,” Alia admitted. “I mean, look at this! How did you even find a place like-“
“Wait, shh.” Kestrel held up a finger, frowning. “Do you hear that?”
Alia paused. For a moment, all she could hear was the roar of the waterfall. She focused, and was about to question Kestrel as to what exactly she was listening for, when she caught it- a sort of slither, something cold and hard scraping against stone. Alia furrowed her brow. “What is. . .?”
As the sound grew louder Alia felt a sudden wave of dread wash over her. She knew.
“We need to get out of here. Right now.”
Kestrel looked confused. “Alia, what-“
Alia had already started back towards the passage. She froze. The sound was coming from there. She cursed, swinging in an abrupt about face and charging towards the greenery, grabbing Kestrel’s hand as she went.
“Alia, what is it?” Kestrel demanded, stumbling in her attempt to keep up. The two ducked behind a large palm bush.
“Something’s coming and I don’t want to worry you but it’s really really bad, is there a back entrance to this place or something?”
“I don’t know, I just discovered it this morning!” Kestrel looked worried, much to Alia’s chagrin. “It’s too late to not worry me, just tell me what it is!”
“I. . . I think it’s a Krok,” Alia lowered her voice. “I don’t know. Maybe I was just imagining-“ She was cut off abruptly as Kestrel crammed her hand over Alia’s mouth and pointed frantically through the bush.
Through the haze of the waterfall, Alia could see the entrance to the chamber, as well as what was emerging from it. It was absolutely, irrevocably a Krok; it was clothed in old-fashioned Krokotopian garb, jeweled necklace and headdress glittering in the sunlight. Its long tail dragged in the sand and dirt behind it.
Kestrel unconsciously made a sort of fearful whine; Alia shushed her and wrapped an arm around her in an attempt to calm her, despite Alia’s own terror and racing mind. How would they get out of this? But the creature, despite the roar of the rushing water, seemed to have caught the noise. Alert, its unblinking eyes fixed onto the shrubs and bushes surrounding the wading pool as it began to trudge forward.
Alia cursed again and grabbed Kestrel’s wrist again; maybe they could try to lead the Krok in a big circle, leaving the exit wide open. But Kestrel would not budge. “Kestrel! We need to move!” Alia hissed, tugging at her younger friend’s wrist. Kestrel was staring in horror at the approaching creature. Alia made a little frustrated noise and, in desperation, grabbed a large, smooth rock off the ground. There was no way she was going to leave Kestrel here to fend for herself.
“Hey, ugly!” She jumped out from behind the bush and threw the rock at the Krok with all her strength. It bounced uselessly off its nose, but it blinked and refocused its gaze from the bush onto Alia. Okay, part one of my plan done, Alia thought. Now what the heck is part two?
“Uh, your mother was a gecko and you smell like a garden snake gone bad! Go away!”
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t respond to the insults- did it even know the common tongue, Alia wondered?- but it did begin to move. Alia yelped and began to run; it was far, far faster than she’d anticipated. She stumbled her way around the chamber, splashing through the pool and crushing small plants, as the Krok followed in hot pursuit. “Kestrel, run! Get out of here!” She shouted, not knowing if Kestrel could even hear her, let alone if she was in any state to flee. Alia tripped over a small indentation in the dirt, regained her footing, looked ahead, and saw-
A wall. The wall of the cavern, stretching far above her head to the ceiling, worn and chipped with age and covered in spiraling vines. Alia smacked her hands against the warm stone, feeling the sting of grit on her palms. “Damn,” she muttered. “Damn damn damn-“ Her exclamations were cut off by a low, gravelly growl.
Alia turned, slowly, to face her adversary. It seemed angrier than before, probably because she’d forced it to run for so long. The head of its long spear glinted menacingly in the thin light. Alia pressed herself as far back into the stone as she could and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Please let Kestral have escaped, she prayed. To who, or what, she wasn’t sure. That would make it worth it. Please. The stone of the wall was warm under her palms; she could feel the vibrations of the thundering waterfall through it. In this brief moment of her life, possibly one of her last, she fancied she could feel through the stone the steady creep of the vines, the warm rays of the suns overhead, the hot desert sand, everything and anything that made up the floating rock and its waterfall oasis.
Alia felt the whole island, in that moment.
She also felt the sudden whip of a stiff breeze. She opened her eyes.
Sand was swirling around her, embedding itself into her dark hair. She could taste the grit on her tongue, crunching between her teeth, as the storm surged around her, enveloping her and the Krok entirely.
And suddenly it was gone from her. Each particle jumped from her hair, her clothing, and leapt through the air, encasing the Krock in a swirling, angry storm of biting sand. It writhed and twisted, obviously uncomfortable, but more importantly, it moved away from Alia. She sagged against the wall, suddenly spent of energy; off in the corner of her eye, though, Alia could see Kestrel standing in the entrance, gaping, and felt a sudden surge of adrenaline. She dashed around the struggling Krok as sand slowly but surely left its body. Now that the initial fatigue had passed, she felt faster, now; stronger, somehow.
But as she ran, the look on Kestrel’s face morphed from awe to horror. Alia knew, in her gut, what was coming. She skidded to a halt and began to turn, but she knew it was too slowly. In her mind’s eye she could see the spear arching through the air, she could see it slicing through fabric and skin and she could see her own body crumpling to the ground and hear Kestrel’s scream-
There was a clang of metal on metal. It reverberated through the air, the unprecedented sound surprising Alia so much that she almost fell mid-turn. Behind her, hovering in the air, was a specter. No, not a specter; from what Alia could see it was solid, clothed in a long beige drape, with huge grey dappled wings. The figure turned; Alia assumed at first it was to look at her, but she was startled to see a red blindfold in place of eyes. In one hand was a scale; in the other, a scimitar. The spear lay uselessly on the ground, deflected by the figure. Did I summon this, somehow? Alia wondered, gazing up at the woman in awe. Like how I summoned that wind?
The woman smiled at Alia before turning back to the startled Krok. Alia couldn’t see her face any more, but she knew that the warm expression had faded into something colder, harder, more ancient. Alia jumped as she felt a hand on her elbow. It was Kestrel.
“Alia, look,” she whispered, pointing to the wading pool. Standing shin-deep in the cold water was a boy, not much older than Alia herself. In one hand he held a wooden staff as tall as he was, curved into a spiral at the top; in the other, a card.
“A wizard,” Alia breathed, and was struck by a sudden emptiness. It was him that had summoned this figure and likely the sandstorm as well, coming to their rescue.
A gong resonated through the air as the woman struck the scales with the scimitar. The Krok let out a garbled scream of pain before dissolving into sand. But Alia hardly noticed either of these things.
With the enemy dispatched, the wizard splashed through the water towards them. “Are you two kids all right?” He said.
Alia suppressed a glare- he couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than her, and calling her a kid?- and nodded. “Yes, I’m okay. Kestrel?”
Kestrel nodded, albeit more shakily, and yet she had a wide grin on her face. “Yeah! That was SO COOL. When did you learn such neat spells like that?”
“Spell,” the wizard corrected with a smile. “And thanks, Judgement is pretty useful.”
Alia just looked suspicious. “Spell? What about that other one, then?”
“I saw!” He grinned at her. “Very impressive, that. I don’t think I could’ve summoned a sandstorm when I was untrained.”
“I. . .” Alia felt her spirits lift a bit. “I did that?”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t me,” he laughed. “You’ve definitely got some sort of natural affinity towards sorcery, I can feel it. I’m surprised Ambrose hasn’t recruited you yet.” He looked thoughtful. “Maybe I’ll put a word in for you. . .” He shook his head. “Anyways, I’m Toby.”
“Alia,” she said. “And this is Kestrel.” Kestrel waved.
“Nice to meet both of you.” He shook each of their hands. “Maybe I’ll see you around! And do try to be more careful, uncharted islands have a high probability of being swarmed by Kroks. You’re lucky I stumbled across here when I did. Though Alia wasn’t doing terribly at defending.” He winked and saluted. “Later, ladies.” With that, there was a burst of sparkling light, and he faded from view.
“Wait, Alia, did you hear that? He’s going to put a word in with the Headmaster! The Headmaster of RAVENWOOD! Oh, my god, Alia, you have never been so wrong in your entire life! You’ll wait for me to apply before you go, right? Right, Alia?” Kestrel was practically vibrating with excitement.
“Yeah,” Alia said distractedly. Her mind was on a million other things- namely, how was she supposed to tell her parents what happened? “Yeah, of course.”
With Kestrel firing off a million comments and questions and exclamations per minute, the two girls began the long trek back to the surface.
Alia was pretty sure that her parents were more excited than she was about Ravenwood. After the initial shock had worn off, and the visit from Headmaster Ambrose himself, they had thrown themselves whole-heartedly into packing. Apparently, Alia would be just in time for the new school year.
“You’re a tad older than most novice students, but with the potential you have I’m sure you’ll catch up quickly,” Ambrose had assured her, tousling her hair with one wizened hand.
Alia was in the midst of deciding which books to bring with her when she became aware of someone in the doorway. Kestrel was leaning against the doorframe, uncharacteristically somber. “Hey Alia.”
“Hey Kes,” Alia said, sitting back on her heels. “What’s up?”
A silence stretched between them. “You said you would wait for me,” Kestrel said suddenly. She wouldn’t meet Alia’s eyes, and Alia had a feeling that they were brimming with tears. Alia stood, brushed off her knees, and took her younger friend by the shoulders.
“Listen, okay? You’re my best friend and nothing will ever change that. You can apply really really soon and I’ll write home every day, I promise! It’s just that I’m really far behind already and waiting any longer, I mean, it wouldn’t be worth it to even go. You know?”
Kestrel shook the tears out of her eyes. “Yeah, I guess. Okay.” She gave Alia a watery smile. “Promise you’ll keep in touch?”
“I promise,” Alia hugged her friend. She seemed smaller, more vulnerable than before. “I promise.”